captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: president obama marked the death of osama bin laden by placing a wreath at ground zero, honoring those who died on 9/11. good evening, i'm jim lehrer. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, we look at today's remembrances in new york and washington and get some perspective on the landmark moment from presidential historians michael beschloss and beverly gage. >> lehrer: and we examine the pakistani army's decision to review cooperation with the u.s. >> woodruff: then, jeffrey brown gets an update on a new round of budget negotiations and a looming debt deadline with lori montgomery of the "washington post."

>> lehrer: we have the story of a california farm town, where a new prison may bring jobs and new troubles. >> that's not going to fly good in this community. there are so many undocumented workers. it's not going to be a popular thing. >> woodruff: and betty ann bowser visits the philadelphia museum of art for an exhibit of medical posters advertising cures for all kinds of ailments. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i want to know what the universe... >> looks like. >> feels like. >> from deep space. >> to a microbe. >> i can contribute to the world by pursuing my passion for science. >> it really is the key to the future. >> i want to design... >> a better solar cell. >> i want to know what's really possible. >> i want to be the first to cure cancer. >> people don't really understand why things work. >> i want to be that person that finds out why.

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and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: the nation's top leaders paid tribute today to the victims of 9/11. the ceremonies came four days after the death of the man who ordered the attacks. the celebrations of osama bin laden's end turned to somber reflection this afternoon at ground zero in manhattan. president obama laid a wreath and said a prayer beneath the symbolic survivor tree. the ceremony honored the nearly 3,000 people who died there on september 11, 2001. then, the site was a vast

smoking ruin, where the world trade center's twin towers had collapsed after being hit by two airliners. nearly ten years later, huge fountains and reflecting pools mark the footprints where the towers stood, and the new freedom tower is under construction. amid the rebuilding, the president met privately with 60 family members of 9/11 victims, after today's ceremony. one was jim riches, who lost his son in the attacks. >> i just want to thank him. hug him and thank him, shake his hand and say thanks. from father to father, thank you for doing this for me, taking care of the man that's out there bragging and saying he is proud that he killed my son. >> lehrer: mr. obama never mentioned bin laden's name earlier, as he met with fire and police units that suffered heavy casualties on 9/11. instead, he said he hoped the

outcome of sunday's raid in pakistan brought some comfort. >> what happened on sunday because of the courage of our military and outstanding work of our intelligence sent a message around the world and also sent here back home, that we say we will never forget, we mean what we say. and our commitment to making sure justice was done is something that transcends politics, transcended party. it didn't matter which administration was in, it didn't matter who was in charge, we were going to make sure that the perpetrators of that horrible act, that they receive justice. >> lehrer: it was a welcome sentiment at a firehouse that lost an entire shift of 15 firefighters when the towers fell. >> we just wanted to tell him we thank him for what he did on sunday and all the troops-- we want to let them know we're with

them every step of the way and thank god, bless them, thank them. if it wasn't for them, we'd still be chasing this guy. it's bittersweet. a lot of emotions come up. >> lehrer: there were similar emotions. outside the pentagon as vice president biden laid a wreath to the 184 people killed there on 9/11. ( "taps" ) meanwhile, there were new revisions to the story of the raid on bin laden's compound in abbottabad, pakistan. news accounts today said only one of the five people killed was armed, and fired any shots. according to the accounts, as navy seals moved in, they were shot at by bin laden's courier, abu ahmed al-kuwaiti, who was in the guest house. the seals fired back and kuwaiti

was killed, along with a woman who was caught in the crossfire. the reports said the commandos were not fired on again as they moved into the main structure. inside, they confronted and killed two other men before arriving at bin laden's room. white house officials had described a longer, more intense firefight. there were also reports that the helicopter that crashed at the compound, might be a previously unseen stealth model. >> one of the things that really stands out is they have a little disk over the motors which is meant to baffle the sound and deny radar signature. >> lehrer: the navy seals set the helicopter on fire before leaving, but children in the neighborhood were seen with small pieces of the aircraft this week. back in this country, secretary of homeland security, janet napolitano, said intelligence from the bin laden raid gave no sign of imminent attacks by al- qaeda. she spoke with the "newshour's" ray suarez for "destination:

casablanca" on the hispanic independent telecommunications network. >> there is nothing we have that would present a specific, credible, direct threat to the united states that is an imminent threat. >> lehrer: still, stepped-up security continued at sites around the country. in the meantime, president obama planned to thank some of the troops involved in the bin laden operation. he'll visit them tomorrow, at fort campbell, kentucky. and to two historians-- beverly gage, professor of american late today u.s. officials said information gleaned from bin laden's compound showed al qaeda considered attacking trains in the united states. but according to the associated press, there was no r recent intelligence that shows that the plot was active. michael, as a matter of history, will barack obama be known from now on as the man who got osama

bin laden? >> i think he will, along with, presumably, a lot of other things, especially if he get a second term. but you can be sure that the obama presidential library, whether it's on the south side of chicago or in honolulu, the two contenders, will have a large remembrance of the day that president obama did this. and in realtime, i think it's important because we have heard over the last couple of years that this was, from obama's critics, it was a professor, so addicted to nuance, that he couldn't make a decisive move on foreign policy. and someone known as barack obama before he became president you feel that you're learning all sorts of new things about him. go back to sunday, this is a guy who has got a lot of guts, who is willing to take a decision if it's gone badly could have cost him a lot. >> lehrer: beverly game, do you agree this says more about president obama than people knew before the other day? >> i do agree with that.

i think it pushes back, as michael was suggesting, against a narrative of indecisiveness, kind of weakness when it came to terrorism, when it came to military matters. but i think it also is a narrative that hasn't dogged obama but has actually dogged democrats for several decades at this point. if you think back, at least to the iran hostage crisis in the late 1970s, when jimmy carter attempted a somewhat similar mission, it was a secret military strike mission. in that case, it was to actually rescue the hostages. it was not a mission of assassination, and it turned out to be an absolute disaster. and the icons of that became the helicopter that went down in the desert before they even reached their target, and it became one of the defining moments of the carter presidency, and i think it's had ramifications for democrats ever since. so it's important for obama, but it is also really important for the democratic party as a whole

in pushing back against that image that dates at least to the 1970s. >> lehrer: politics aside, about political party elements aside, michael, is the jimmy carter example. he had guts, he made the decision to reskute hostages. >> he did. >> lehrer: and he's not the one who brought the helicopters down and yet he was blame forward the failure and accuse of all kinds of things. >> there were accidents and the result was he didn't get the hostages out. if h it worked he probably would have been re-elected in 1980, but instead -- >> and that would have been his-- >> that would have been decisive carter, this great master stroke goes down in history. instead people connected this to high oil prices, gas lines, high inflation, frustration in afghanistan, this kind of thing. this is what these things oftentimes mean. another example-- gerald ford in the wake of the vietnam war, spring of 1975. america just lost the war in vietnam, first war we had lost. a merchant marine ship, minner

ship, was taken hostage by the khmer rouge. ford sent the marines in. the marines liberated the ship. the staff-- the people who were on the ship all survived. 18 marines were killed in the course of this but this was seen as a great master stroke for gerald ford a more decisive leader than we thought. and there's a resonance of today it raised the morale of americans in the wake of the loss in vietnam. >> lehrer: presidents make these decisions, gutsy, or whatever you want to call them, but the people who have to carry them out are the ones who make it either work or not work or providence dense or a lot of other things are involved, correct? >> that's absolutely true. michael's right, in some sense, jimmy carter's role ended when he made that decision, and it was the same decision, whether the mission itself succeed or failed. but, of course, the president, in the end, actually end up being the figureheads of these moments and are rightly or

wrongly given a lot of responsibility of how the operation actually plays out. i'm not sure i agree with michael had that mission succeeded in the iran handle case that jimmy carter would have been re-elected. i think we actually have lots of examples of these kind of great moments of decisiveness, of bumps in the polls, that in fact doesn't end up changing electoral outkpplz you think of something like harry truman in 1945 who was seen as a weak president, people don't have a lot of confidence in him. he makes the decision to drop the atolic bomb on japan. it's this moment of horror on the one hand, but a real american dominance, people are impressed with american technology. harry truman is suddenly seen as this very decisive figure in a way that he hadn't been before, and he's clobbered following year at the polls. so i don't think that we can say necessarily that history is going to suggest that this makes it an easy road for obama now. in fact, there's a long time between now and the 2012

elections. i think it will certainly change the way historians write about obama in 20 or 30 years. but i'm not sure it's going to be the thing that changes how people vote in the upcoming election. >> lehrer: michael? >> jimmy carter point, what i really meant was that the minidrama of a hostage rescue would have helped jimmy cart ebut the handles would have been out, and he wouldn't have had the problem for carter all the way through 1980 culminating in the election. carter would have had a much bigger chance against ronald reagan. the other point i would like to make and that is since 1945, presidents have encouraged americans to think that they're responsible for almost everything, you know, increase in prosperity, wars that we win, other things that you like. while, at the same time, they're not responsible for the things that you don't like. and one symptom of this is that when there is a decision like this that really does rest on the performance of the seal necessary this case or other

things that are beyond a president's control, it's the president who gets the credit or gets the blame, and perhaps we should be a little bit more modulated in giving presidents both. >> lehrer: do you agree with that, beverly gage? >> i do agree, but i think one thing that-- again, the carter example really underscores just how much of a risk obama took in authorizing this mission. so it certainly could have gone either way. there are any number of things that could have gone wrong that he would not have been responsible for-- sandstorms, for instance. on the other hand, given that he knew the number of things that could have gone wrong it was a huge risk for him to take in his presidency and it's going to be a risk that pays off but how much it pays off in the end in terms of electoral success we'll have to wait and see. >> i agree with beverly. >> lehrer: okay, but if the raid had gone badly, both of you agree, that no matter how-- quote-- gutsy his sdifgss, if the raid had gone badly for any reason, it would have been an

obama-- it would have been on obama's record, and he would have been blamed for it. >> everything that people would be frustrated by in the barack obama administration would have been connected to this, and this would have been a symbol of that. barack obama knew that and that does show how much courage he had in making that decision. >> lehrer: beverly, i'm interested in your truman analogy as well. as you said, truman went out lowest in the polls in american history up to that point, or maybe since. but he's now considered one of the great presidents. so many, many years later, you historians went back and said, "oh, he wasn't so bad after all." >> that's absolutely right. and so, you know, with historians, i always say what is the impact going to be? i don't know. ask me in 30 years. judge sk me in 40 years and then we'll really know what this movement means. >> lehrer: okay garks michael beschloss, thank you very much. >> pleasure. >> thanks gim. >> woodruff: still to come on the "newshour": u.s. pakistan relations after bin laden; budget talks aimed at cutting deficits; a new prison for a california town and an exhibit

of vintage medical posters. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: iraq has suffered its second major bombing this week. at least 20 police officers were killed today at a police station in hillah, a mostly shi-ite city about 60 miles south of baghdad. the bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a barrier, as police were gathered outside for a shift change. in addition to the dead, 40 people were wounded. on tuesday, a bombing in baghdad killed at least nine iraqis. the u.s., france, britain and other nations agreed today to establish a fund for helping the rebels in libya. at a meeting in rome, secretary of state hillary clinton said the fund could draw partly on $30 billion in frozen libyan assets. and in libya, a rescue ship carrying more than 1,100 evacuees from misrata arrived in rebel-held benghazi. they included dozens of civilians wounded in heavy shelling by government forces. in syria, troops were on the move again, in a bid to crush anti-government protests. the army said units were

withdrawing from daraa, the heart of the uprising against president bashar al-assad. but people in the coastal city of banias reported forces were massing there. this cell phone video showed columns of tanks entering the city today. workers in japan have made their first foray into a damaged reactor building at the fukushima dai-ichi nuclear plant. the unit one building was rocked by an explosion just after the march earthquake and tsunami. today, workers connected ventilation equipment to reduce radiation levels inside. the crews were allowed in after robots collected fresh data. their readings showed radiation levels had fallen enough for humans to enter safely. new worries about the u.s. economy roiled the stock market today. the dow jones industrial average lost 139 points to close at 12,584. the nasdaq fell 13 points to close at 2,814. and the price of oil took its steepest dive in two years to drop back under $100 a barrel.

the sell-off followed word that first-time claims for jobless benefits have hit an eight-month high. nasa leaders and former astronauts marked the golden anniversary today of u.s. manned space flight. it was 50 years ago that alan shepard blasted off from cape canaveral, florida on may 5, 1961. he was wedged into his tiny "freedom 7" mercury capsule for a sub-orbital flight that lasted just 15 minutes. soviet cosmonaut yuri gagarin had become the first man in space, just 23 days earlier. shepard later walked on the moon during the apollo 14 mission. he died in 1998 at the age of 74. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: to the pakistan story. the south asian nation is seeing internal political turmoil, and its relations with the united states shakier than ever, since the sunday killing of obama bin osama bin laden in the pakistani city, abbotabad. bill neely of "independent television news" reports from there.

>> reporter: far from ground zero where the mastermind of its horror was shot and killed, pakistani troops are on guard. on the night he was killed, osama bin laden had almost no guard. u.s. officials now say only one the unanswered question is, was he that confident because he believed he was under the protection of the state, of pakistani officials who had reassured him he'd be safe here. pakistan's government says that's wrong. >> this is a false hypothesis. this is a false charge. >> reporter: but many in pakistan say its spy agency the i.s.i. must have known bin laden was here. >> i think they definitely knew and were complicit in it. that is different as to what level they knew and to what extent they kept it to themselves and who they were. that all has to come out through a very serious inquiry. >> reporter: a former head of

the i.s.i. agency denies any collusion with bin laden or al qaeda. >> no collusion. no collusion because i know the psychological makeup and orientation of the i.s.i. has never been pro-al qaeda. >> reporter: but it is possible someone in the i.s.i. knew he was there? >> anything can be possible. anything can be possible. but is it also plausible? i would say no. >> reporter: bin laden's yemeni it doesn't impress these men, pakistan's military commanders angry at the attack and threatening that if there's another like it, pakistan will review its military ties with the united states. wife who was shot in the attack is still being questioned at pakistan's military headquarters. she says she was at the compound for just a few months. u.s. intelligence officials are desperate to find out everything she knows. >> woodruff: for more on the killing of osama bin laden in pakistan and what this means, we turn to shuja nawaz, who has written frequently on the pakistan military. he is now at the atlantic council. and robert grenier, a former cia station chief in pakistan.

he is now a financial advisor to security companies. gentlemen, we thank you both for being here. shuja nawaz, to you first, in addition to the people we just heard in the bill neely report, we know that the "wall street journal" today quoting u.s. and european officials saying they have no doubt that bin laden was protected by some in the pakistani intelligence infrastructure. we have senator carl levin, the chairman of the senate intelligence committee saying the same thing. so what is the truth? >> we won't know the truth till we get the hard evidence, and i think it may come out from the materials collected from the compound where bin laden was killed. or unless the pakistani authorities come forward with what they can find on who, if anyone was involved in protecting him or hiding him in abbottabad. >> woodruff: i apologize, i misspoke, carl levin, chairman of the armed services committee.

are you saying it's truly up in the air? >> it's possible, but how it could stay secret through schngz of personnel at the i.s.i., through changes of government is a great mystery, given that pakistan has failed to protect many other secrets of this kind in the past. >> woodruff: so it sounds like you're skeptical. >> i would wait to see the evidence, yes. >> woodruff: grerng what about you? how do you read this? what do you think is the truth? >> i think at this point it's almost too early to speculate. if i had to bet right now, i certainly don't think that the intelligence services or the pakistani army were complicit right from the outside. i don't think they intercepted bin laden, for instance, after he escaped from tora bora and gave him aid during that period of time. i find that impossible to believe. however, if at some point along the way they might have discovered his whereaboutss, or if say more recently they discovered his whereabouts in

that compound, in abbottabad, is it possible that they could have decided that this would just be too difficult for them to handle that the domestic political consequences of taking him and turning him over to the americans would simply be too great, and, therefore, that they should turn a blind eye and let a sleeping dog lie? i certainly wouldn't rule that out. >> woodruff: another part of that that remark shuja nawaz, there's a quote from general kiani, in abbottabad, one week before the bin laden raid and he's quoted as saying pakistani security forces have, in his words, brokep the backs of the terrorist and will soon prevail over the menace. >> he was referring specifically to the pakistani taliban, and to a large extent what he was saying is absolutely true. they did break the back of the t.t.p., but he was not referring certainly to the entire spectrum of terrorists that are inside pakistan, including the

punjabi taliban or the afghan taliban that use pakistan as a sanctuary. >> woodruff: when you put together, robert grenier, the skepticism of u.s. and european unnamed officials but you have senators on the record, senator levin, the armed services committee. we had two other senators this week on the program from the intelligence committee expressing skepticism. is u.s. aid to pakistan in jeopardy now, do you think? >> i don't think there's any question but that it is in jeopardy. and we know that there has been resistance from the pakistani side toward having strict measures of accountability to see how this money was being spent, and if anything, in the pakistanis have chafed at that. and i think if anything, those requirements of stricter accountability are going to increase over time, and the i think the u.s. side is going to become far more intrusive. >> woodruff: is it in doubt, that this aid is going to continue? >> i think it will come under

increasing scrutiny, and rightly so, because congress will want accountability. but the fact that it is not being favored by the administration and fact that even the pakistani response to the charges against them today from the core commanders' meeting, the military statement talks about any future raid and the consequences of which might be disastrous in the words of the foreign secretary, means that the pakistanis really haven't reacted as badly as they could have, which is they could have stopped the flow of materiel into afghanistan. that's a good sign. i also feel that it's an opportunity to engage with pakistan and to finally--. >> woodruff: for the united states? >> for the united states to engage with them and finally agree on some broad objectives, and then see how they can rebuild this confidence, which has, obviously, been shattered with this recent incident. >> woodruff: what has to happen for things to get back on

track-- or can they get back on track? >> they can get back on track. i think pakistan's civilian government has to play a role in this. this is not something that should be left to policy making by military alone. it was unfortunate that the prime minister of the country called the death of bin laden a great victory and them got on a plane and went off to france instead of convening high-level security meeting and looking at what new strat pakistan needed to adopt. leaving it to the military to give the policy response many days later. >> woodruff: robert grenier, how do you see the state of u.s.-pakistan relations right now, and what-- assuming it is in some trouble, how do you see it getting back on track? >> well, it seems as though we're going from crisis to crisis at this point. and it seems to me that the only fundamental way to get this relationship back on track is to get-- beneath the surface of what is currently upsetting

individuals on both sides, to look at the underlying policies. there are aspects of pakistani policy, both domestic and foreign, where they're clearly not on the same page with the americans. i'm not sure that we'll ever get to a point where policy on both sides completely converging, but at this point, they are highly divergent, and both sides need to get back on the same page, both in terms of u.s. aids to pakistan, a policy to deal with extremists on its own territory, and also, particularly in the afghan context, to get both sides working together toward a common objective. >> woodruff: does one side have more of a burden in this relationship than the other to get things straight, to get things back on track? >> well, i'm not sure it's useful to even think about it quite that way. pakistan has very clear national interests in afghanistan. we have clear national interests. i think that the united states has not done enough to bring the pakistanis into confidence, and to reassure them that their interests will also be taken into account, and of course the

adverse is true as well. >> woodruff: and shuja nawaz, i wanted to ask you about the role of the u.s. in getting this relationship on a more even feel but at the same time, this news from the pakistan defense minister today, the announcement that they are going to reduce the u.s. personnel in pakistan, even when those personnel were not involved in this particular raid on bin laden. >> i think this is a carry-on from the earlier statement after the drone attack of march this year when the military threatened to start cutting back on the u.s. presence. there was great concern that many intelligence assets were being placed inside pakistan under the guise of military assistance. so i see that really in that context. i think that the united states still has an opportunity but in the end, as robert was saying, it's in pakistan's own interest to end the ambiguous relationships that it has with the afghan taliban and with some of the punjabi taliban group

because you cannot differentiate between terrorists. it's very critical for pakistan to decide that it has to remove terrorism from inside pakistan. then it and the u.s. will be on the same page. >> woodruff: all right, we are going to have to leave it there. shuja nawaz, robert grenier, gentlemen, we thank you both. >> lehrer: in washington, a new round of high-level budget and spending negotiations got underway. jeffrey brown has our story. >> brown: vice president biden met with top lawmakers from both parties today to begin talks on cutting the deficit. the bipartisan group, including house majority leader eric cantor, gathered at blair house, across the street from the white house. both sides viewed the meeting as a first step, with no expectations of an immediate deal. >> this is an opening meeting

where today i had a chance to talk a little bit with each of my colleagues. we're going to lay down, not a hard negotiating position, but to make sure each of us understands where the other guy's coming from. >> brown: on the table now are budget plans recently put forth by both the president and house republicans. the president's budget has called for a $4 trillion deficit reduction over 12 years, by ending tax breaks for households earning more than $250,000 a year; seeking up to $400 billion in new defense spending cuts; reducing domestic discretionary spending by $770 billion and exacting $480 billion in fresh savings from medicare and medicaid. the republican plan, authored by paul ryan, would reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over ten years by cutting domestic spending; reshaping medicare, paying private health plans instead of reimbursing doctors and hospitals directly

and converting medicaid into block grants, giving states less money but more flexibility in caring for the poor and disabled. though republicans are aware senate democrats are certain to block the ryan plan from moving forward, speaker boehner stood his ground. >> when it comes to increasing debt limit and the need to have reductions in spending, nothing is off the table except raising taxes. >> brown: but ryan himself sounded less hopeful that his more ambitious goals will be met, saying today that republicans are, quote, "not under any illusion that we are going to get any grand slam agreement." this morning's meeting came as congress prepares to consider raising the 14.3 trillion debt ceiling-- the amount the federal government can legally borrow. amid concerns of a default on u.s. debt, treasury secretary timothy geithner has given lawmakers more time to negotiate.

in a letter to congress monday, he extended the default deadline from may 16 to august 2. exiting today's budget session, biden told reporters progress had been made. the bipartisan team will meet again next tuesday. lori montgomery is covering the story for the "washington post" and joins us now. lori, what was the headline coming out of today's meeting? >> i think the headline was that these guys are coming into the room prepared to work together. i mean, there's been a lot--. >> sreenivasan: that is a headline, isn't it? we don't hear that too often. >> we don't hear that too often, and we have had partisanship sniping over the. ing resolution that keeps the government running through the year, relatively small potatoes. but now these guys are come both room to do the big stuff, to talk about big changes over the next 10 years, to actually bring down borrowing, and certainly you hear a very different tone,

people talking about finding common ground, leaving the big issues for later. >> brown: as we said, there is no deal here right? they're laying down markers and positions and there's anything to be a lot of to and fro, but the tone, you're saying, was different. >> very different. and the house majority leader who represents speaker boehner in these talks, reiterated today the starting point for these negotiations is to find areas of overlap in the two budgets that we just saw described. >> brown: now does that-- what do you make of the paul ryan statement today? that's got to be related here. are they-- republicans are not conceding at this point, are they, that there won't be big changes to medicare or medicaid? >> i don't think they are. i think what they're saying is we recognize that democrats have pledged to protect these programs. we believe that these are the largest drivers of future deficits and they're absolutely right about that. however, we also recognize that we need to reach an agreement to pass this debt ceiling pretty quickly. therefore, instead of arguing

forever about health care and taxes, like we always do, why don't we start looking for some common ground and start from there. and that seems to be the same page that everyone is on. >> brown: now, what about the pressures we keep hearing about for that-- that push against both sides? republicans have to-- still have that pressure from tea party conservatives. >> well, there was a pretty significant backlash today on capitol hill from this idea that ryan expressed yesterday and cantor also expressed yesterday that conceding that we're not going to get our medicare plan in these talks, we're very unlikely to get our medicare plan in these talks. and people were saying, hey, wait a minute. we voted for this budget. why should we approve additional borrowing if we don't get those kind of cuts? but you're hearing from senior republicans in the house pretty broadly the acknowledgement that it may be an effort to lower expectations among their own troops-- look, guys, we've got to figure out where we can get

something that a democratic president will actually sign. >> brown: and speak of a democratic president, the pressures that he has been under from his left to avoid major spending cut. those haven't gone away, either, right? >> no, they haven't gone away. it's going to be very difficult. i think whatever they come up with is going to be a hard sell for both sides because it's not going to be a $4 trillion budget. it's very unlikely to be, so that's not going to satisfy the one side, and on the other hand, it's likely to cut a lot of spending, and that's going to anotice the other side. >> brown: in the meantime, bring us up to date on the separate bipartisan group of senators, this so-called gang of six. this is a completely parallel track they're on, or is there some meshing with what we're talking about here? >> that's an excellent question, and i wish i could answer it fully. they say that they're still plowing ahead. senator tom coburn, who is a member of the gang of six, had to suddenly go home because of a family emergency so they aren't meeting right now. but they say they're going to

return to the table when they get back next week, and i think the problem they're facing at this point is, you know these are three very conservative republicans who desperately believe in this goal. but the package that they're looking at would involve a tax reform proposal that raises additional revenue, but it leaves to the commits to decide how that will happen. and i think they're having a very difficult time signing off on some things where they can't control the particulars. >> brown: now, we mention the context here, which is the looming deadline on the debt ceiling. are these two things, the long-term deficit and the debt ceiling, are they inextricably tied together now, at least in terms of negotiating positions? >> well, for the moment they are. but i don't think-- i mean, i think that the debate over the long-term deficit continues once we get past the debt ceiling. i think the debt ceiling is force something kind of

short-term deal that will, t very least, get us an agreement on the 2012 budget, get us through next fall. without shutting down the government any more, that sets some typh of targets on spending over the next five- to 10-year horizon and produces a package of cuts that is a down payment towards those targets. and the magnitude of those cuts could be a couple of hundred billion. it could be more. it's unclear what shape of the package will be. >> brown: let me ask you finally secretary geithner gave everybody a little more breathing room, right, but not a lot. he still had this great sense of urgency. so where do things stand in terms of the possibility, the likelihood of coming up with-- against that deadline? >> well, they've got some time. i mean, what are we? we're in early may. we're going to hit the debt limit in a could you feel weeks, and geithner has said that he can sort of juggle the books and keep paying the bills until

early august without any trouble. but, you know, the longer-- once we hit the limit and he starts to do those things that he can do, we've begin to pay a price for that. uncertainty begins to accum, and in the past we've paid more money for interest because of it. so they can't let it th go on forever. >> brown: all right, lori montgomery of the "washington post," thanks for the update. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: next, another in our occasional reports from journalism students around the country. it comes from alissa figueroa at the university of california berkeley's school of journalism. her story is about a california town wrestling with solutions to high unemployment. >> reporter: mendota is a dusty, ragged city of 10,000 people in california's central valley. >> hola!

>> reporter: but it's surrounded by some of america's richest farmland. almost everyone here works in agriculture and most are latino immigrants. joe del bosque runs a 2,400-acre cantaloupe farm near mendota. even with unemployment in california at 12%, he says that only latino immigrants come to him looking for work in the fields. >> any fresh fruit and vegetable has to be picked by hand. we have immigrants that are willing to do it and we should be thankful that we do. in this valley, there's a huge demand for labor. we don't have enough people here in the valley to harvest these crops by hand, and people don't come from the cities on the coast, inland to pick our crops. >> reporter: del bosque says he only hires workers who can provide social security numbers. but more than half the farm labor in california's multi-

billion dollar agriculture industry is performed by illegal immigrants, so there's a good chance that many of his workers are undocumented. they're willing to do this labor, which is low-paying and seasonal. most people in mendota, regardless of their immigration status, are jobless for part of the year. this is largely because agriculture work is so unstable. unemployment in the city reached 40% last year. mendota's leaders, headed by mayor robert silva, have spent years trying to diversify the local economy. >> 93% of the jobs in mendota are ag-related, so we wanted to get away from that, and that's why we managed to do a lot of different things the last couple years. >> reporter: the city council went after a multi-million dollar federal prison. >> this mayor out of delano, they had a prison there, and he was telling me, "oh, robert,

there's a lot of good things that come out of the prison." >> reporter: like jobs. the new prison is scheduled to open this spring. guards there will earn twice the average salary in mendota. but few of them will be from town. hardly anyone here qualifies for the federal prison jobs. they require a college degree and good credit. >> i'd say when that place is built if we have five people from this community working there, that's gonna be like, wow! >> reporter: but last fall, another. economic opportunity came up. >> c.c.a. takes great pride in providing a safe, secure and positive environment both for our corrections professionals as well as the individuals in our care. >> reporter: corrections corporation of america, or c.c.a., is the biggest private prison company in the country. c.c.a. approached the city about building another prison in mendota. they already own this land within the city's limits. and they've promised to hire

locals. c.c.a.'s contract with the city says that 80% of the new prisons staff will come from the surrounding community. it seemed like a golden opportunity. except for one thing. >> they're negotiating with the feds about building a facility there, which is going to be an immigration type of prison. >> reporter: a detention center for immigration and customs enforcement, or ice-- the federal agency that arrests and deports illegal immigrants. >> that's not going to fly good in this community because that was the number one thing people asked me, "es del ice? es de la migra? es sierto que va estar ice? ice going to be here? is the migra going to be here? no, no, no, no, no." i don't know. and if that happens, if they start with that here in this

town, with 40% at times, that there are so many undocumented people here, it's not going to be a popular thing. people will leave. >> they'll have to leave. >> people are scared. >> reporter: they're scared because the last time ice came to mendota four years ago was during a series of raids that left 150 people throughout the county in handcuffs. the raid caused a public uproar. mendota's city council condemned it, and there hasn't been another one in the city since. the illegal immigrants who avoided arrest went back to work in the fields. >> ( translated ): the people who have their papers don't go into this work. it's the undocumented people who are willing to do it. so, if they do that, they'll end up losing all the workers. all the vans that go to work at 5:00 a.m., if they check them, they'll take everyone.

and if there's fruit to be picked, there it will stay. >> reporter: not all californians agree. rick oltman has spent the last two decades on the front line of the battle against illegal immigration in california. >> if a reasonable wage is paid, you'll have americans doing these jobs. it isn't true that illegal aliens take jobs that americans won't do. there are no jobs that people won't do, there's only wages that people won't accept. >> reporter: ice has not formally approved the detention center yet. the agency declined to comment on plans for the site. but if built, the center in mendota would help house the growing number of immigrants awaiting deportation hearings, prisoners who are now held in county jails, like this one in richmond, california. >> it probably would lead to more enforcement because you would have people asking, well, we have this facility that we've paid for, and half the beds aren't filled, how come we're not enforcing the law more? >> reporter: mendota's leaders

are focused on the 300 jobs they say the detention center would bring, not the potential for more ice raids. even councilman joseph riofrio supports the new facility. >> you know, if we don't, someone else will. other communities line up for them. but people need to work here. >> reporter: the mendota city council traveled to washington d.c. in march to lobby the department of homeland security for the ice detention center. c.c.a. sent executives as well. the company has a lucrative because the recession put many federal and state prison projects on hold, immigration detention is now one of the company's biggest growth areas. mayor robert silva doesn't see any losers in the deal. he says that even the towns undocumented workers wont have to fear ice if the detention center is built. >> the feds look the other way.

because no one's going to be doing this labor work. nobody else. that's why a lot of undocumented workers come to california, and it's been going on since the '40s. it's not going to stop. so, i don't believe that the u.s. is going to go down and crush this area because the facility is there, i don't believe it. >> reporter: meanwhile, mendota's illegal immigrants continue to live and work hidden, in plain sight. >> woodruff: yesterday, a hiring freeze at the federal prison was lifted and job applications are now being accepted. no contract has been signed yet for the detention facility. >> lehrer: finally tonight, advertisements for medicines as art. "newshour" health correspondent betty ann bowser reports. >> you may not ever have

beantown a cold with ayers cherry petrol or picked up a bottle of biofeeds at your local pharmacy, but these products make up some of the balms, tonics, and pills that were stepping stones on the way to contemporary medicine and many of the posters advertising them are on display at the philadelphia museum of art. the exhibit is called "health for sale," with dozens of images that document the turns and shifts of medical history with vivid color and a good sense of humor, too. dennis shumaker is one of the curators of the show. >> these posters come from many, many countries, mostly france, mostly america, but there is one from hungry. there is a chinese one, a japanese one. >> it draws from the collect of william h.helfirsthand who began to collect them as an executive at a pharmaceutical company. >> he bought his first medical print in the 1950s and he kind

of went on from there, and as he moved around the world with his job, he formed this enormous collection which now is, like, 7500 prints, posters, all of these different things that have to do with medicine and pharmacy. >> they're basically advertisements, aren't they? >> that's right. these, obviously are, all based upon selling products. the earliest ones i think begin around 1840, and what you find is incredibly various kinds of design. we love them because not just for their artistic value because of their design and their color but also because some of them are just really humorous. they don't list side effects. they show the results will of what this can do for you. one that i think is fun sethis one right over here. it shows a woman holding a kind of dispenser of this product

that she's holding up to her nose, and, obviously, this is something that has radically improved her breathe. or this one over the here which is another one that i love, which is a mother happily combing this product through her daughter's hair because she has lice and everybody is just happy. the poor girl who's got lice in her hair, sitting there while her mother combs her hair as though nothing is wrong at all. >> reporter: why is this art? >> i think it's a combination of things. first-rate design. it has to do with the production of it. many of them are color lithographs. but mostly it just has to do with the successful communication of the image. it is not how you would define fine art, but it's popular art, and some of them are very beautiful. >> reporter: such strong images were tools of persuasion, and their messages reflect preoccupations with illnesses that have since become rare in

the western world. other concerns continue to come up in public health communities. whatever the symptoms, ads for their cure targeted a very specific audience. >> most of the products were advertised for health professionals, and not the way things are today for the general public. i think they definitely show where medicine was at the time, because some of them, such as this one over here, i mean, that was a real product. and you do i want see that around anymore kb more. aspirin, for example, bayer aspirin, is over here. so some of the products continue and others are just no longer with us. this kind of direct advertising art is something that, you know, everybody sees advertisements all the time. and these are just so well done and so interesting to think about in terms of what is being advertised and how they're doing it, which is so different from

the way it's done today. >> woodruff: the health for sale exhibit will be on display at the philadelphia museum of art through july. >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day: president obama marked the death of osama bin laden by placing a wreath at ground zero in new york city honoring those who died on 9/11. pakistan warned against any more raids on its soil, like the one that killed bin laden on sunday. and stocks and commodity prices fell over new concerns about the recovery. the dow jones industrial average was down 139 points, while oil dropped back under $100 a barrel. and to hari sreenivasan, for what's on the "newshour" online. hari? >> sreenivasan: a now-iconic photo from the white house captured the scene in the situation room as officials waited for the news on osama bin laden. secretary clinton told reporters more about those fateful moments today. we recap that on the rundown blog. we asked terrorism and security experts what's next for al-qaida. find that on our world page. our health unit looks at

shortages of some prescription drugs. plus on paul solman's making sense page, you can still pose your questions about the financial crisis to charles ferguson, director of the academy award-winning documentary "inside job." all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> lehrer: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the iraq and afghanistan conflicts. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are eight more.

>> woodruff: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks, among others. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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